By Tanya H. Lee on 5/6/16 as posted in Indian Country Media Today
In 1985, a government report for the first time documented disparities in health and mortality between black and other minority groups in the U.S. and whites. Thirty years later, we remain a nation of serious inequities when it comes to health and health care, according to a new report.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics has published a 461-page analysis, “Health, United States, 2015: With Special Feature on Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities,” detailing the progress we have (and have not) made in addressing health discrimination.
About 42 percent of the American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) population gets its healthcare through the Indian Health Service. The National Congress of American Indians in its analysis of the FY2017 budget request for the IHS pointed out that the agency’s per capita spending is only $3,107, compared to $8,097 per person for health care spending nationally in 2014.
